Most elevators are provided, at a main ceiling of an elevator cab, with an escape hatch for allowing occupants to escape from the elevator in the event of emergency, in which the elevator is abnormally and abruptly stopped due to power failure or obstacles, and a door of the elevator cannot be normally opened. The escape hatch generally has a standardized size of 400×500 mm.
Conventional elevators can generally be classified into two types of elevator including an exposed type elevator in which such an emergency escape hatch is exposed to the outside, and a shielded type elevator in which the emergency escape hatch is shielded from view. For the exposed type elevator, there is a problem in that the emergency escape hatch is exposed to the view of the occupants, providing a poor appearance. Accordingly, the exposed type elevator has not been adopted for recent elevators including high-end elevators.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating the interior of a conventional shielded type elevator cab in which the escape hatch is shielded from view. Referring to FIG. 1, the elevator generally includes an emergency escape hatch 1 provided at the center of a main ceiling of an elevator cab, and ventilation fan or an illuminating means (both of which will be referred to as ‘illuminating means 3’) disposed at both sides of the main ceiling. These illuminating means 3 are provided in a longitudinal direction along both sides of the main ceiling of the elevator cab while being spaced a predetermined distance from each other under the main ceiling. The elevator cab is provided with a thin shielding plate 5, including a metallic plate or an acrylic plate, for covering the entire space between the illuminating spaces 3, such that both sides of the shielding plate 5 are laid between the illumination means 3. FIG. 2 is a cross sectional view of the elevator cab in which the shielding plate 5 is disposed on the illuminating means 3.
The ceiling comprising the illuminating means 3 and the shielding plate 5 is referred to an ‘assistant ceiling’ in the art in comparison to the main ceiling.
For such a conventional shielded-type ceiling device, which is disposed between both illuminating means, the shielding plate 5 must have a considerably large size in order to cover an overall exposed space defined between the illuminating means 3. For the elevator cab, the exposed space between the illuminating means 3 has a size of approximately 1,000×1,500 mm. The standard size of a stainless steel plate corresponding to the size of the exposed space is approximately 1,219×2,438 mm. Accordingly, only one shielding plate can be produced with the stainless steel plate having such a standard size. The remaining steel plate after producing the shielding plate is wasted or recycled. As a result, consumption of material is considerable. Additionally, several servicemen are needed in order to install such a large shielding plate 5 as an assistant ceiling below the main ceiling due to the heavy weight of the large shielding plate, and there is a large possibility of injury of the serviceman if they drop due to their weight. Needless to say, it is difficult to maintain such a large shielding plate after installing. As such, the conventional shielding plate has problems in material consumption, difficulty of transportation and excessive costs of transport due to a large volume, an excessive number of installation servicemen, difficulty in maintenance, and the like, leading to an overall increase of costs.
Additionally, since the shielding plate 5 is suspended between both illuminating means 3, the height of the ceiling in the elevator cab is considerably lowered, thereby providing a problem of difficulty in transport of tall furniture, such as bureaus, with the elevator.
In order to solve the problems, a shielding plate 5 consisting of several segments was suggested, which can be installed to the elevator cab after coupling the segments.
However, in this case, these segments of the shielding plate 5 must be accurately coupled or overlap each other in order to prevent light from being leaked out of gaps between the segments of the shielding plate 5, thereby complicating the installation of the shielding plate and requiring more man power.